World’s first balloon dog art trail incorporates contactless fundraising

, also known as Swindogs and Swinpups, consisted of  72 fibreglass balloon dog sculptures which were located in key tourist attractions, parks, libraries and shopping areas across Swindon.

There are 30 larger Swindogs designed by artists and 44 smaller Swinpups, designed by local schools and community groups. Alongside many of these were eleven Payaz contactless donation points, which use Give A Little software.

After the trail, the sculptures, a community art project that Julia’s House developed with

, were auctioned in aid of Julia’s House.

Chris Hyde, Swindon Art Trail Project Manager, explains:

“We decided we needed to have contactless donation stations to raise the profile of the charity and to raise vital funds. We wanted to give people a way of making a donation in exchange for a physical map of the trail,  so having a cashless donation station was imperative to make the trail successful. We chose to have four floor standing and seven countertop Payaz donation stations, which use Give A Little software. We have been really pleased with how the trail has gone and we are particularly happy with how the users have interacted with the donation stations.”

On why they chose Give A Little, Chris adds:

“We chose Give A Little for a number of reasons. We really liked the fact that you can create unique campaigns to track how successful each donation station was. We could then make decisions based on the data and move the stations if necessary."

"This has been really successful and resulted in an uplift in donations. It’s also been fantastic to add images and video to our fundraising campaigns. We chose to show images of the children we support and photos of the sculptures, so donors could link the two together. We would like to thank everyone who came along to see the trail and made a donation. Your donations will make a huge difference to the families and children we support.”